Social PK Love - Lucas Social Thread: “Inside the mailbox was absolutely nothing”

[MrWhYYZ]

F-air is semi-safe on shield now. I did fair on cloud's shield and afterwards did D-tilt which clashed with his jab OoS.
Lucas's throw isn't that much slower than a regular throw whiff and even if the start-up is slower, it still has more range than a regular throw. It's easier to whiff punish than a regular throw but it's definitely not easy anymore.

Also, does anyone know if Z-air was always so long? It's close to one battlefield platform atm and I thought it used be shorter.

N-air btw is easier to DI because of the damage increase, it makes it slightly harder to combo but it's still possible.

Overall good buffs especially F-air.

 

[JesterJaded]

F-air is semi-safe on shield now. I did fair on cloud's shield and afterwards did D-tilt which clashed with his jab OoS.
Lucas's throw isn't that much slower than a regular throw whiff and even if the start-up is slower, it still has more range than a regular throw. It's easier to whiff punish than a regular throw but it's definitely not easy anymore.

Also, does anyone know if Z-air was always so long? It's close to one battlefield platform atm and I thought it used be shorter.

N-air btw is easier to DI because of the damage increase, it makes it slightly harder to combo but it's still possible.

Overall good buffs especially F-air.

Speaking of Nair, is D-throw > Nair > Nair > Uair still a thing or can optimal DI escape it now?

 

[MrWhYYZ]

Speaking of Nair, is D-throw > Nair > Nair > Uair still a thing or can optimal DI escape it now?

D-throw N-air N-air U-air was never a thing if people DI'd the right way but yeah it still works if they don't DI down on the first N-air


I feel so dirty hitting N-air planes. That damage is so high is just nomnomnom.

 

[JosePollo]

Speaking of Nair, is D-throw > Nair > Nair > Uair still a thing or can optimal DI escape it now?

The knockback on frame 26 of nair is the same as it's ever been, so it's still all about following the opponent's SDI during nair and their DI before up air. The additional hitstun from the extra 8% actually makes it easier to execute the string reliably in my experience.

 

[k-ta]

Off topic but I just remembered that Mother 3 came out on VC in Japan today (yesterday?).

Now we just have to spam Miiverse again

 

[SpandexBullets]

I'm finding nair a lot harder to connect with the looping hits. Granted I've been fighting a Ness and a Pikachu for an hour and connecting anything that isn't an arc on those M&Ms is pretty difficult.

Anyone else experiencing that?

 

[Login_Sinker]

I'm finding nair a lot harder to connect with the looping hits. Granted I've been fighting a Ness and a Pikachu for an hour and connecting anything that isn't an arc on those M&Ms is pretty difficult.

Anyone else experiencing that?

Yeah smaller characters are harder to scoop up with it because of the increased damage.

Also, you guys are telling me Nair > Nair > Uair isn't guaranteed? I never knew. I've gotten it every single time I've gone for it as long as I followed my opponents DI to keep them trapped in Nair.

 

[7up1001]

Off topic but I just remembered that Mother 3 came out on VC in Japan today (yesterday?).

Now we just have to spam Miiverse again

Also, the Lucas Amiibo released in Japan today.

Can't wait for it to be released in the US (unlike Mother 3 ;-; ).

 

[Masque]

Got Mother 3 on the VC, two Lucas amiibo (one for home and one for work), the Mother series Nintendo Prepaid Card, AND a yellow Mr. Saturn card case. Best day ever. <3

 

[MrWhYYZ]

Also, you guys are telling me Nair > Nair > Uair isn't guaranteed? I never knew. I've gotten it every single time I've gone for it as long as I followed my opponents DI to keep them trapped in Nair.

Yeah, people rarely DI down but if they do they can't get hit by the second N-air. However you could do FF U-air N-air Footstool if you're fast enough reacting to thwy're DI.

 

[Login_Sinker]

Yeah, people rarely DI down but if they do they can't get hit by the second N-air. However you could do FF U-air N-air Footstool if you're fast enough reacting to thwy're DI.

Ah, that's interesting. I didn't know you could DI out like that, and apparently none of my opponents do either. So I guess against someone who DI's it properly, it's more optimal to go for a finishing followup after a single Nair (like Nair > Fair or Uair).

 

[frozentreasure]

Also, the Lucas Amiibo released in Japan today.

Can't wait for it to be released in the US (unlike Mother 3 ;-; ).

Pattern recognition.

 

[JosePollo]

Ah, that's interesting. I didn't know you could DI out like that, and apparently none of my opponents do either. So I guess against someone who DI's it properly, it's more optimal to go for a finishing followup after a single Nair (like Nair > Fair or Uair).

Or if you're like me and suck at landing the up air, you can do a FF nair > d-tilt > follow-up, which has been working nicely for me since the patch dropped. The optimal follow-up is usually a grab, but down tilt obviously leads to a lot of other stuff, so just get creative with it.

One thing you can do to get the opponent to the right percentage for nairs to link reliably is (from 0%) to down throw up air them. Up air's 10 BKB means they don't go anywhere after the attack, and you can follow their landing afterwards and choose a follow-up that works well in the match-up. E.g. Luigis usually throw out a nair after the up air, which you can punish by shield-grabbing them, then start your down throw nair. In fact, a lot of people will try to come down with an aerial if they have a sex kick-like combo-breaking option (Fox, Sheik, Mario, etc.) so it's a pretty reliable thing. Of course, an opponent CAN just usually jump away after the up air, so always be on the look-out for opponent's tendencies. If you see they like to jump out of hitstun a lot, go for something more guaranteed like a simple down throw down air or down throw nair to fair. The down throw up air is more of a punish against players who like to challenge combos with aerials. Where normally just going for a down throw nair to fair you have the opponent at 29% (if you sweet-spot the fair, otherwise it's just 26%), if you up air them first you're adding a hefty 20% (down throw is a 6.5%, not an even 6.0%) damage to your combo total.

 

[BlueberrySyrup]

If anything nair probably links better now, since weak hits do more damage they probably make opponents rise a little more, if anything it's just like it used o be more than likely.

I knew I felt a fair change as well but didn't know for sure, glad to hear it's an ACTUAL thing. Anyways guys my take on Lucas is this...

I felt like before this patch he was unviable at any high level tourney, and I still think he'll have a really hard time there, but now he has abusable tools to do more things, I've placed him out of low tier into lower mid tier.

He's getting more solid, and if he watches Lucas like he watched Ike, we can expect some more quality of life buffs, we still need a faster aerial, less lag, and please god make either dair or uair good, we need to have a good approach under or above opponents, no reason to have a really slow startup on dair and a terrible uair hitbox.

Nair's damage is really nice, but tbh against smaller characters it doesnt help that much. (I live in a house with the 2 best Pikachu's in my state lol)

I also would like to see Lucas's D Smash act like Shulks and do shield damage but not break shields, and if it did oh well that means they got caught at the ledge, others get it why can't we have something?

I can get used to this fair though, those 3 frames shaved off makes it feel so much better, it'd be cool if it started a frame or 2 earlier though so we can get characters like Fox off of us and maybe actually get an auto cancel.

 

[FUEGO!]

Ness still has longer reach on his dash grab than Lucas's, but that's a completely different story.

THAT'S A THING?!?!

And this Fair buff is fantastic. I'm finding you can now follow up early percent Fairs with Jabs and Tilts because of the 3 frames shaved off. This is working wonders for my Aggressive play style I'd love to go back to...I miss PM Lucas...

 

[BlueberrySyrup]

THAT'S A THING?!?!

And this Fair buff is fantastic. I'm finding you can now follow up early percent Fairs with Jabs and Tilts because of the 3 frames shaved off. This is working wonders for my Aggressive play style I'd love to go back to...I miss PM Lucas...

Aggressive Lucas did get buffed, and that's how I play so I'm really happy about that.

Then again, I play more of full on idiot face Lucas and do suicidal attacks to destroy my opponents lmao.

 

[FUEGO!]

Aggressive Lucas did get buffed, and that's how I play so I'm really happy about that.

Then again, I play more of full on idiot face Lucas and do suicidal attacks to destroy my opponents lmao.

Yeah, there's a really campy Lucas who's high on PR that's giving him a bad name IMO, I'd like to make it up there with Aggresive Lucas and I feel that will be much easier with this patch combined with the last one as well. I'm stringing fairs together like Ness, not joking.

 

[BlueberrySyrup]

Yeah, there's a really campy Lucas who's high on PR that's giving him a bad name IMO, I'd like to make it up there with Aggresive Lucas and I feel that will be much easier with this patch combined with the last one as well. I'm stringing fairs together like Ness, not joking.

Can't blame him for playing Lucas with the only thing he has. Unfortunately I don't have the patience do it usually lol. Sometimes I will to win a tourney, but I usually just go ham.

 

[MrWhYYZ]

Campy, Bait & punish Lucas is still the way to play. When you do have the advantage you should go ham but if not camp and wait for a opening.
Also whiff Throw PP Throw is godlike. Extremely gimmicky but it works really well.

 

[FUEGO!]

Campy, Bait & punish Lucas is still the way to play. When you do have the advantage you should go ham but if not camp and wait for a opening.
Also whiff Throw PP Throw is godlike. Extremely gimmicky but it works really well.

I think I needed to be more clear. I still space very heavily with Pk Fire and Fair (Zair to a lesser extent, i need to get better at it.), but the second I see the opportunity, I start to look like PM Lucas, crossing up shield with Nair, doing a lot of tilts. But despite this, I still know to back away and go back to spacing and punish, because sometimes it's all you can do (looking at Link right now...).

That said, this Lucas I'm talking about does literally NOTHING but Pk fire spam, and he's somehow ranked 3rd in Arkansas. I've been repeatedly told my Lucas has been amazing by other players since his launch, probably because of my PM experience with the character, but I never trusted the character for bracket use like I feel I can now in 1.1.3

 

[JosePollo]

At around the :41 mark. What did I even do? It looked like some ghetto ledge dash. O.o

 

[PKBeam]

it looks like your feet scraped against the stage as you were getting up and you got sucked into your landing lag animation.

 

[JosePollo]

Yeah, there's a really campy Lucas who's high on PR that's giving him a bad name IMO, I'd like to make it up there with Aggresive Lucas and I feel that will be much easier with this patch combined with the last one as well. I'm stringing fairs together like Ness, not joking.

With the recent patch, the few remaining things that I feel Lucas needs in able to truly be able to be aggressive are:

• Less hitlag on nair--It's entirely possible for most characters with a fast grab to shield grab him out of his nair when he's stuck in hitstun. Reducing hitlag on the move from 1.0 to like 0.5 or something would make the attack rather safe on shield, with the increased damage and shield stun (reducing hitlag doesn't reduce shield stun).
• Faster auto-cancel on nair--Right now nair doesn't auto-cancel until frame 38, three frames later than his total short hop air time (35 frames). Nair auto-cancelling on around the vicinity of frame 34 would give him a lot more mobility while remaining on the offensive. It would make his nair almost unpunishable to characters without strong OoS options.
• Faster auto-cancel on fair--Which also auto-cancels on frame 38. Making it auto-cancel at around the same time as nair would make throwing out short hop fairs in neutral a viable zoning option. It would be similar to Ness, but without the long-lasting hitbox (fair only lasts 4 frames, only 2 of which are strong and disjointed) and slightly a longer disjoint.
• Remove the staling on zair--Frames 9-13 of zair hit at 4.0% damage, which is barely enough hitstun at lower percentages to follow up reliably with anything if the foe opts to roll or spot dodge. At higher percentages (starting at about 100% on average) zair knocks the opponent down with little time to react and tech, which can be followed up with a down smash for an almost-guaranteed kill (certainly guaranteed near the edge, given down smash's killing power), or, if you space it well enough, a down tilt lock. The only problem is that frames 9-13 happen when Rope Snake is almost right in front of Lucas. At frame 14, or at about less then halfway to full stretch, zair stales from 4.0% to 2.8% (hitbox size also decreases from 2.3 to 2.0 units, because 2.3 isn't small enough already--FYI, ZSS goes from 3.0%, 2.0 size hitbox to 6.0%, 4.0 size hitbox, because, y'know) which has almost no hitstun and doesn't start knocking people down until almost 200%. You have to hit people at point-blank range in order to really take advantage of zair, which is extremely unsafe in shield due to hitlag (which is more than the shield stun the 4.0% of damage incurs) AND the 8 frames of landing lag afterwards. Removing the staling would make zair (something which is already rather...not fearsome, but useful at least) a pretty fearsome tool at any percentage and open up a myriad of kill set-ups to Lucas in the form of missed techs/tech chases.

TL;DR: Moar nair buffs pls, Sakurai <3

 

[FUEGO!]

Okay, well don't take this the wrong way, but do I just need to go back to Ryu then? Because i was really excited for these buffs until thr last page has been what he's still lacking rather than actuslly discussing what we just got more in depth. (That said, your post is amazingly well thought out JosePollo , i really hope any of this happens soon!)

 

[JesterJaded]

Okay, well don't take this the wrong way, but do I just need to go back to Ryu then? Because i was really excited for these buffs until thr last page has been what he's still lacking rather than actuslly discussing what we just got more in depth. (That said, your post is amazingly well thought out JosePollo , i really hope any of this happens soon!)

Imo the matchups Lucas benefits from are vastly different from Ryu's so it isn't exactly a question of which one you should ignore, but from what you can take from the buffs is that what makes Lucas a really terrifying character to get punished by (Nairplane combos and D-throw shenanigans) just got safer and even more terrifying. And Fair is safer.

Speaking of Fair, how noticeable is the change in endlag? Is it safer on shield by a noteworthy margin?

 

[A Polar Bear]

I'm not experiencing the same problems with n-air people are getting... they still seem to string together as well as ever.

Outside of perfect shield, I don't think sweetspotted f-air on shield is punishable on landing anymore, jab comes out too fast.

 

[frozentreasure]

• Remove the staling on zair--Frames 9-13 of zair hit at 4.0% damage, which is barely enough hitstun at lower percentages to follow up reliably with anything if the foe opts to roll or spot dodge.

Unless they're floaty enough to get the footstool follow-up.

Speaking of that combo, I can't get it to work on Pikachu, either. Pikachu's hitbox after the footstool makes the first hit of down air connect, and I can't find any timing to get the aerial out so that it doesn't hit Pikachu initially and still gets the lock.

Also, a good way to set up each cycle of the combo is the sour forward tilt, which extends the lock while making you automatically face them and spacing you to get momentum for the next Z-air, and also racks up another 7 damage. This stops working at about the 60% mark on, at least, floaty characters, where it will stand them up, so you either need to get good at positioning yourself without a tilt after that point, or just end the combo there with a smash or grab.

 

[C3CC]

I'm very sad, guys Please listen to my tale of woe, because I need to vent. You see...

I was playing Earthbound on my Wii U and was really close to finishing it. I started the battle with Giygas (how do you even pronounce his name? "Gigas"?) and got to the third phase of the battle. I abused the Wii U emulator and saved every turn so if something went wrong I would just reload from the last saved point (seriously, this game is literally impossible without this feature).

I had heard a long time ago that Paula's previously useless "Pray" command was vital to this battle. I used it twice and since it didn't really do much, I thought they meant it as an alternate option to beat Giygas and stopped using it, because I was doing pretty well with my party dealing lots of damage and thought I would eventually kill with without Praying.

So after a looong while there I was, with all Paula, Jeff and Poo dead because of stupid OP PSI Flash and with no items left to revive them at all, and Ness with 0 PP to use PSI Healing. I kept on bashing Giygas and even got several SMAAAASH!!!! that would even deal 1000+ damage. An hour and a half later into the battle and realizing that he was not dying, I searched on the internet how much HP he had...

... Only to realize that he has infinite HP and the only possible way to kill him is using Pray over and over again. I couldn't use Pray anymore because Paula and everyone else were dead and I had no items or PP, and since Giygas wasn't dealing any damage to me (and I had over 700 HP left), I realized the battle was never going to end, so I just turned off the console...

... And there I was, back at the last point where I saved by using the phone and calling Dad, which was right after using the machine Dr. Andonuts, the Apple Kid and Mr. Saturn built for me. I hadn't even transformed into a robot yet. I'm very sad because there's no way in hell I'm going through the entire goddamn path again to face Giygas because it's way too long and difficult, so I just decided I won't play it anymore. It's very disappointing because I loved the game and enjoyed it a lot (even with all of its design nonsenses) and it's sad that I will never get to beat it.

How stupid is that? They should at least give you a hint that you have to pray in the battle over and over again. I only knew because I read it on the internet. What if I hadn't? Or how did people do back in '95 when the internet didn't exist (or at least wasn't accessible to everyone)?

I'm so angry, mad, pissed, sad and disappointed. Did this happen to any of you? :'(

 

[Patriot Duck]

I'm very sad, guys Please listen to my tale of woe, because I need to vent. You see...

I was playing Earthbound on my Wii U and was really close to finishing it. I started the battle with Giygas (how do you even pronounce his name? "Gigas"?) and got to the third phase of the battle. I abused the Wii U emulator and saved every turn so if something went wrong I would just reload from the last saved point (seriously, this game is literally impossible without this feature).

I had heard a long time ago that Paula's previously useless "Pray" command was vital to this battle. I used it twice and since it didn't really do much, I thought they meant it as an alternate option to beat Giygas and stopped using it, because I was doing pretty well with my party dealing lots of damage and thought I would eventually kill with without Praying.

So after a looong while there I was, with all Paula, Jeff and Poo dead because of stupid OP PSI Flash and with no items left to revive them at all, and Ness with 0 PP to use PSI Healing. I kept on bashing Giygas and even got several SMAAAASH!!!! that would even deal 1000+ damage. An hour and a half later into the battle and realizing that he was not dying, I searched on the internet how much HP he had...

... Only to realize that he has infinite HP and the only possible way to kill him is using Pray over and over again. I couldn't use Pray anymore because Paula and everyone else were dead and I had no items or PP, and since Giygas wasn't dealing any damage to me (and I had over 700 HP left), I realized the battle was never going to end, so I just turned off the console...

... And there I was, back at the last point where I saved by using the phone and calling Dad, which was right after using the machine Dr. Andonuts, the Apple Kid and Mr. Saturn built for me. I hadn't even transformed into a robot yet. I'm very sad because there's no way in hell I'm going through the entire goddamn path again to face Giygas because it's way too long and difficult, so I just decided I won't play it anymore. It's very disappointing because I loved the game and enjoyed it a lot (even with all of its design nonsenses) and it's sad that I will never get to beat it.

How stupid is that? They should at least give you a hint that you have to pray in the battle over and over again. I only knew because I read it on the internet. What if I hadn't? Or how did people do back in '95 when the internet didn't exist (or at least wasn't accessible to everyone)?

I'm so angry, mad, pissed, sad and disappointed. Did this happen to any of you? :'(

Just take a week-long break and dive back in. You got too far in the game just to end up not finishing it.

 

[C3CC]

Just take a week-long break and dive back in. You got too far in the game just to end up not finishing it.

I was thinking of doing that, but I'm just so angry. I had done so well. Only thinking of having to go through all those stupid Starmen again just makes me angrier, and all because of bad game design. Whatever. I may give it a shot sometime next year, but not now. I'm temporarily done with it.

 

[MewtwoMaster2002]

I'm very sad, guys Please listen to my tale of woe, because I need to vent. You see...

I was playing Earthbound on my Wii U and was really close to finishing it. I started the battle with Giygas (how do you even pronounce his name? "Gigas"?) and got to the third phase of the battle. I abused the Wii U emulator and saved every turn so if something went wrong I would just reload from the last saved point (seriously, this game is literally impossible without this feature).

I had heard a long time ago that Paula's previously useless "Pray" command was vital to this battle. I used it twice and since it didn't really do much, I thought they meant it as an alternate option to beat Giygas and stopped using it, because I was doing pretty well with my party dealing lots of damage and thought I would eventually kill with without Praying.

So after a looong while there I was, with all Paula, Jeff and Poo dead because of stupid OP PSI Flash and with no items left to revive them at all, and Ness with 0 PP to use PSI Healing. I kept on bashing Giygas and even got several SMAAAASH!!!! that would even deal 1000+ damage. An hour and a half later into the battle and realizing that he was not dying, I searched on the internet how much HP he had...

... Only to realize that he has infinite HP and the only possible way to kill him is using Pray over and over again. I couldn't use Pray anymore because Paula and everyone else were dead and I had no items or PP, and since Giygas wasn't dealing any damage to me (and I had over 700 HP left), I realized the battle was never going to end, so I just turned off the console...

... And there I was, back at the last point where I saved by using the phone and calling Dad, which was right after using the machine Dr. Andonuts, the Apple Kid and Mr. Saturn built for me. I hadn't even transformed into a robot yet. I'm very sad because there's no way in hell I'm going through the entire goddamn path again to face Giygas because it's way too long and difficult, so I just decided I won't play it anymore. It's very disappointing because I loved the game and enjoyed it a lot (even with all of its design nonsenses) and it's sad that I will never get to beat it.

How stupid is that? They should at least give you a hint that you have to pray in the battle over and over again. I only knew because I read it on the internet. What if I hadn't? Or how did people do back in '95 when the internet didn't exist (or at least wasn't accessible to everyone)?

I'm so angry, mad, pissed, sad and disappointed. Did this happen to any of you? :'(

During the praying part, Ness should be the support for healing while Paula prays. Also, you could have saved at the time machine after traveling back in time.

Back then, the game was bundled with a player's guide, so I'm assuming that helped.

 

[C3CC]

During the praying part, Ness should be the support for healing while Paula prays. Also, you could have saved at the time machine after traveling back in time.

Back then, the game was bundled with a player's guide, so I'm assuming that helped.

That's what I did, but the machine is too far from Giygas's spot. You have to go through aaaaaaall the way filled with Starmen and the robots whose names I can't remember. They should have added a healing and saving spot before the fight (like in, you know, 99% of games like this one -_-).

 

[Login_Sinker]

I just emulate old games. Save/Load on the spot is wonderful. It makes me a scrub, though.

 

[EmpireCrusher203]

I usually have an online guide with me while playing the Mother games. They came out really helpful in bosses back in Mother 3.

 

[PKBeam]

all the mother 3 bosses are easy mode lol.
the only one that might be a little hard is Miracle Fassad.

 

[A Polar Bear]

all the mother 3 bosses are easy mode lol.
the only one that might be a little hard is Miracle Fassad.

It's true. Earthbound and Mother 3 both had pretty easy bosses, pretty easy gameplay in general. But that's a wildly varying opinion, because there are some people who think the Mother 3 bosses are deadly difficult.

 

[meleebrawler]

It's true. Earthbound and Mother 3 both had pretty easy bosses, pretty easy gameplay in general. But that's a wildly varying opinion, because there are some people who think the Mother 3 bosses are deadly difficult.

All depends on how much you grind really. Though at least Mother 3 prevents you from grinding TOO much.

 

[A Polar Bear]

All depends on how much you grind really. Though at least Mother 3 prevents you from grinding TOO much.

Hard Mode for life. Work those combos.

 

[PKBeam]

Assist PSI and stat changes hard counter like... every single boss in the game.
It's almost not even fun anymore when you just sit there putting up shields and buffing/debuffing stats because you just end up with three party members bashing the boss and Kumatora just using your strongest iteration of PK Thunder.

the most challenging bosses for me are the ones at the end of chapter 2, 3 and 4. the bosses are hard enough that you're forced to use your party creatively and pay attention rather than mash A the whole time but you only have two good PSI moves, if any, so you can't just put up a wall of shields and stat buffs and just decimate them in 5 turns.

Earthbound and Mother 1 are two different kettles of fish though.

 

[Login_Sinker]

Although the final boss in Mother 3 was hard for different reasons